This blog is based in Northeast Ohio, what was "La Nation du Chat," the Cat Nation, as the French-Canadian furtraders called the Land of the Erie Indians. The blog will touch on many issues: nature, the environment, literature, poetry, society, and politics. Around here we think of the Lake Erie shoreline as the North Coast of the United States--a Frontier in the midst of the Rust Belt.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Since I live so near to the Chardon-Kirtland border, the wild woods where many of the local Melonheads are said to roam, I live in terror of Halloween. There are naysayers, sure. There are doubters. There are agnostics. But I have driven over "Crybaby Bridge" at midnight and heard their keening; I have driven over "Heartbeat Bridge," and felt their heartbeats and my own!

No, I don't doubt their existence. I have even caught fleeting glances of these enormous-headed "people," flitting from tree to tree in the deep woods along a branch of the Chagrin River. These restless souls, these creations of the evil Dr. Crowe, never at peace, wandering the woods--and scaring the bejeebers out of everyone in the area!

Be careful, my friend. Keep clear of the Melonheads of Kirtland-Chardon on this wicked holiday!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

This Wednesday I will have the opportunity to read a poem in German at the Lakeland Writing Carnival. This time I'll read from Rainer Maria Rilke's Das Stundenbuch, "The Book of Hours." Here is that magnificent poem:

What will you do, God, when I die? I am your pitcher: I will shatter. I am your drink: I will spoil. I am your raiment and your trade: without me you will lose all meaning. After my death, you will have no house where kind words wrap you. The velvet slippers will fall from your tired feet. Your long cloak will release you. Your glance, used to the cushion of my warm cheek, will go out looking for me and, when the sun goes down, will lie in the lap of strange rocks. What will you do, God? I'm anxious.

This isn't a terrible translation, but it sure loses the powerful magic, rhyme, and pacing of the German! Who would have thought German could be so beautiful!

Then I will sing a song in Irish Gaelic, An Ghaoth Aneas, "The Southwind." I have put the approximate pronunciation of each line between slashes (/):

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Last night, around 11:30 PM, I watched as the first miner, Florencio Ávalos, emerged from the San Jose mine, about 45 kilometers from the Chilean city of Copiapó, the middle of the Atacama Desert (the driest desert on earth). This miner had been underground 69 days, and it took about 16 minutes riding in the rescue capsule, Fénix (Phoenix), to go the 2000 feet or so from the mine to the surface.

Then this morning, maybe around 7 AM Cleveland time, I saw the 9th miner, Mario Gómez, age 63, emerge from the capsule onto the surface of the earth (photo above). He embraced his wife and some of the rescuers, then knelt on the ground and prayed. I couldn't hear his prayer and probably would have understood only part of it. In my imagination, I heard him say the words of the Magnificat, in Spanish, his mother tongue:

Friday, October 8, 2010

We received some devastating news last evening about a National Guard comrade of my niece, Michelle Zaremba. This fellow, John David Delaney, Michelle's co-driver on convoys in Iraq, apparently took his own life. I am lacking in details about this tragedy, but I think it might be the soldier who was driving with her when her truck was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). At the time, Easter of 2004, Michelle was slightly wounded and her co-driver seemed at first to be dead--but somehow he regained consciousness and they were both able to escape the truck before it incinerated.

Many soldiers are still in immanent danger in Iraq and Afghanistan. And thousands of others continue to suffer the aftereffects of the war via PTSD, nightmares, addictions, and other physical and psychic injuries. Our prayers are with them!

Here is a link to John Delaney's obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bucyrustelegraphforum/obituary.aspx?n=john-delaney&pid=145853119

It seems he was not the co-driver when Michelle Zarfemba was wounded; he drove with Michelle after that incident.